Rohan Bopanna eases into second round at French Open

India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Franko Skugor comfortably won their men’s doubles first-round match 6-4, 6-4 at the French Open 2021 in Paris on Tuesday.

They beat the German-Georgian duo Andre Begemann and Nikoloz Basilashvili in the opening round.

With Rohan Bopanna and Nikoloz Basilashvili up against each other, it was set to be a battle of big servers.

Both pairs held their serves remarkably across the first set, winning each of their service games without conceding a break point.

The opening set was tied at 4-4 after eight games, when Begemann-Basilashvili faltered slightly on serve in the ninth game and the Indo-Croatian duo pounced.

Bopanna-Skugor earned their first break point of the match and though they could not convert it then, they made no mistake two points later to move into a 5-4 lead.

There were no nerves from Bopanna-Skugor, as they comfortably served out to take the first set 6-4.

The second set was more nervy from Begemann-Basilashvili. After both pairs held serve in the first two games, the German-Georgian team could have been broken in the third game, but saved the break point and held on to take a 2-1 lead.

However, they could not do so two games later. After Bopanna-Skugor had made it 2-2, they attacked their opponents to earn as many as three break points before finally converting at the third time of asking to go up 3-2.

The score quickly became 4-2 and in the seventh game, Bopanna-Skugor converted their fourth break point to lead 5-2 and had a chance to serve for the match.

Instead, the Indo-Croatian pair were staring down at a 0-40 deficit in the eighth game before winning five points in a row to take the game and the match.

Rohan Bopanna and Franko Skugor will now face the winner between the American pair of Nicholas Monroe-Frances Tiafoe and the eighth-seeded Polish-Brazilian duo of Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the second round.